The Writing On The Wall
by karebear
Summary: "To see the writing on the wall is to realize that a situation is inevitably going to end badly." Greagoir sees it in a dungeon cell, in the aftermath of Anders' year in solitary. DAWC Graffiti challenge. Sequel-ish to "Epiphany"


Title: The Writing On The Wall  
><span>Author<span>: karebear  
><span>Rating<span>: T (violent imagery and language)  
><span>Characters<span>: Greagoir, offscreen but-still-critical Anders  
><span>Standard Disclaimer (Dragon Age)<span>: I don't own these characters or the world they inhabit. Bioware built the sandbox. I just play in it.  
><span>SummaryNotes: response to the DAWC Graffiti challenge, which was supposed to be _fun_, coming from a _smile-inducing_ mental picture of "ANDERS WUZ HERE" carved into a dungeon cell wall. But I can make _anything_ angst-heavy, clearly (especially with the assistance of liberal amounts of Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin).  
>Takes place immediately after "Epiphany," for Greagoir. Though reading that is not strictly required, it may help you in figuring out his state-of-mind (and "Isolation" will get you Anders' state-of-mind, for those who have not read that already).<p>

* * *

><p>The dungeons are dank and foreboding, the only illumination coming from flickering torchlight, and never enough of that. The shadows wrap close around him. These cells are soaked with mildew and perpetually smell of blood (or is that only his imagination?)<p>

Greagoir has no idea what he's looking for, but he knows he has to be here.

Because down here is uncomfortable for him, after only a few minutes, but he can leave any time. But on his orders, a young man was locked in this place for a year, a lifetime of slow decay, over minutes and hours, weeks and months. And if he doesn't own up to that, he has no right to command anyone.

He takes a few slow and hesitant steps into the cell.

He didn't know what he'd thought he'd see, but this wasn't it.

There is the expected makeshift calendar, one line marking each day gone by, and there are far too many lines to easily count. But the calendar is almost hard to find, hidden as it is by _everything else_ that covers the walls. Almost every bit of available, easily-reachable space has been marked in some way.

It seems once the boy figured out how to scratch lines in the stone, he never stopped.

And Greagoir never knew.

He had not the slightest clue that this mural was evolving while life moved on, insane and turbulent, in the Tower above this stagnant pit.

Surely the templars guarding the boy must have _noticed_ him consistently writing and drawing on the rock.

Maybe they thought it didn't matter. He himself never really gave this cell more than a passing glance.

How can they claim to be keeping anyone safe when they fail to see what is right in front of them?

A question that's been haunting him since Uldred's insane ambition fueled a desperate revolution led by demons.

Since before that, when Jowan turned to blood magic, dragged Rhyanon Amell behind him in a stumbling attempt at escape. Backed into a corner, the boy had cut his wrist and thrown a dangerous spell against an entire squad of templars.

But the fear and ice-cold anger in Rhyanon's eyes had been directed not at Jowan, but at him, the Knight Commander who ordered her death in retribution for destroying a phylactery and aiding a maleficar in escaping justice. And when Duncan conscripted her into the Wardens to shield her from the Chantry's law, she followed him without looking back.

At the time, Greagoir had been _furious_. But his men were fine, no worse off than any mage they hit with a Holy Smite.

Would he really have killed her?

_Yes_. He answers his own question almost instantly, and the knowledge is depressing.

He would not have hesistated to do his duty, then, just as he had not hesitated when Arl Eamon handed Jowan over to the Tower. The boy, the blood mage, did not fight at all. He looked Greagoir in the eye and told him he'd rather die than live trapped in this place.

He may have cast a spell powered by his own blood, but he had never killed anyone.

How much blood is on Greagoir's hands?

He knows that Anders claimed friendship with those two. They had once been inseparable, making all sorts of mischief as children.

What would the boy in the cell have thought about those events, if he knew?

He sits down on a stone floor, to collect his breath, to collect his thoughts. Down here he feels like the old man he is.

His eyes sweep the walls around him, and light on one phrase.

ANDERS WUZ HERE.

The marks are wild and uneven, childish, and they make him pause.

It's not like he has exact records on these mages in his care. He knows little about where they come from or when they were born. But this one he's paid special attention to, and he knows... the first time he was dumped in this dark hole, alone and afraid, he was no older than fourteen.

If Greagoir had known then what he knows now... what? What would have changed?

What was trying to do?

He never wanted to be the type of man that feels the need to prove his own power by breaking the will of those under his authority.

He's been told, he's told _himself_, over and over, that the Templar Order is honorable, that they are the Maker's shield in this living world, that their actions protect the innocent. He'd been so proud the day they made him Knight Commander, he'd been so sure as he swore those vows that he was doing the right thing.

But how could he say those words, and _do_ this?

"Actions speak louder than words," whispers a voice in his head from a long, _long_ time ago that he barely remembers. His mother?

He's almost glad he doesn't remember anything else about the woman who brought him into the world, and she'd be long dead now anyway.

The Tower is no place for people with family.

The mages and templars here have cut all ties with theirs, the mages taken whether or not anyone protests, the templars arguably making the choice to make the Chantry their only relatives, although Greagoir knows that more than half of them had no practical say in the matter.

The only family they have is each other, and this family is so abusive and dysfunctional that no reasonable person would want it. No wonder Anders ran away.

In the beginning, they still tried to talk.

Greagoir and Irving would ask the boy what he wanted, what he hoped to accomplish, but all three of them knew it was hopeless. He wanted freedom, and this system of broken control, all-or-nothing extremism, would never willingly give him that.

They tried to convince him that it would not be so bad if he just let himself accept his life here, but Anders, still young then, looked the Knight Commander straight in the eye with wild defiance and cursed and fought, and told him that he'd _never_ stop fighting if they tried to keep him caged.

He ran, they caught him, brought him back, punished him, and Greagoir prayed each time that Anders would learn the lesson that they _all_ eventually learn, that there is no fighting the Chantry. There is only one escape from the Tower, and that's death.

But he only fought back harder the more danger he was in.

After a while, they stopped talking.

Anders responded only with the silence of the already-damned.

The only answers he could give are here, written on the walls.

Over the years, there are addendums, the lettering growing more controlled with practice and maturity.

AGAIN.

_STILL._

There are other messages scattered in other places, some in deep, harsh, angry gashes, others tiny and nearly hidden. Some have been scratched out entirely.

HATE THIS PLACE.

FUCK YOU.

I WIN.

In one corner, Greagoir sees scrawled in small letters the phrase "is a lie." The preceding word is smudged and dirtied, barely readable. If he had to guess, he'd swear it said "cake," but that can't be right.

He looks around, taking in every detail of this prison-cell world, sweeping his gaze over the stone that surrounds him, choosing new points of focus at random.

It's not just writing. It's not even _primarily_ writing.

The walls are _covered_ in pictures.

Maybe it's a trick of the light, but it seems like there is an overabundance of red shading throughout the artwork, from bright splashes and highlights, to deep almost-black pools.

Surely the boy was not so unbalanced as to sketch these drawings in his own blood?

Greagoir reaches out carefully, running his fingers over the wall, holding his breath. Some of the pigment flakes off and clings to his skin. Paint. Just paint. He breathes again, and leans back against the cold, solid stone.

Where did Anders get paint?

From him. He remembers one of his men telling him that the boy had asked for parchment and inks. He'd conceded to the request without hesitation. He never imagined that this would be the result.

He has to admit, the drawings are _good_. The boy had real talent. And the only place he could show it was here, on the walls of a dungeon cell.

The realism present in these approximations only makes their content more disturbing.

There are pictures of templars dying in all manner of ways, some clearly invented and some all too real.

Mauled by wild animals, bears and mountain lions that the boy could have conceivably seen, fleeing through Ferelden's wild forests. And others that could only have come from books, tigers and elephants and... is that a _shark_?

Roasted by fireballs, charred bodies singed with smoke, too similar to those _real corpses_ they'd cleaned up after Uldred's rampage.

He recognizes his own image, and he freezes. His armored avatar lies broken in a pool of red, crossed over and surrounded by deep, sharp cuts.

Lashes, he realizes.

"149. I counted, you bastard."

A decade. A half-dozen escapes and recaptures.

Greagoir knows without doing the math in his head that the boy's count is correct, that these gouges in the rock are an almost perfect reflection of the scars that now permanently mark his flesh.

_Why?_

Because the Chantry told him he had to, because apostates _must_ be punished.

Apostate. As soon as he stepped off of the Tower grounds, that's what he became. Greagoir could have had him killed, would have met only cursory resistance.

He'd told himself over and over again, through countless nights, that this was the better option. _Was it?_

He stares at the message on the wall and knows it's right: he did this to a _child_. If Anders did come back here to take vengeance, it would be nothing more than he deserves.

But not all the artwork is violent, charged with angry threat.

Much, perhaps even most of it, is exactly the opposite.

There are quick sketches of other people Anders knew, his friends or simply Ferelden citizens he'd observed when he _wasn't here_.

There is a drawing of a girl strumming a lute, and when he looks closer Greagoir recognizes the face of one of the younger apprentices.

And there's a lot of captured beauty, a world the boy must have spent countless hours working to bring to life in this forgotten darkness.

The mingled colors of sunset, the dappled green of light through trees, the gradients of autumn leaves. Things Anders never would have seen if he'd listened to the grown men pleading with him to follow the rules, things that gave him hope to cling to when _everything_ else was taken from him.

Life, in this haunted place where people come to die.

Greagoir has a million regrets, but somehow he knows that he still does not regret giving this boy a chance at life over death.

He's only saddened by the knowledge that this _life_ will continue to be stolen from the hundreds of other mages and templars trapped here, the "smart" ones, those unwilling to risk brutal torture or lyrium withdrawal for a marginal chance at escape.

"Should I... clean it up, Knight Commander?" asks a hesitant, worried-sounding voice.

Greagoir turns to the young templar.

How long has he been down here, that his men feel the need to check up on him?

"Leave it," he demands. "People should see."


End file.
